Rokuban: Too Close to the Sun

Regardless of culpability, 95% of those arrested in Japan confess to the crimes of which they have been accused. Once indicted, 99.9% of defendants will be found guilty, their confessions being the single most damning piece of evidence used by prosecutors against them.

I’m up at five, an hour earlier than usual, so I can take care of some things before I have to leave for work. Considering how much I drank last night—three double margaritas straight up at the aptly named Mexican restaurant, El Borracho (The Drunk)—I am feeling pretty good.

“Maybe I’m still drunk,” I say, sitting up in my futon.

It probably wasn’t the wisest thing to go drinking the very night my home was raided by a small army Narcotics and Customs agents, but those three margaritas were the shortest distance separating me from restless anxiety and being curled up in the arms of Morpheus.

Out of habit, I walk over to where my Mac ought to be.

“Oh, yeah,” I say, remembering that the computer has been confiscated.

I make an about-face and go to living room where a stereo component system has been gathering dust, pop in a random CD, push play, and Mr. Hermano’s “Free as the Morning Sun” brings the long unused speakers dancing back to life.

“To hell with the neighbors,” I say, turning the volume up and filling my apartment with the song’s uplifting melody.

In the kitchen I make myself a bowl of café au lait, and carry it out to the balcony where I sit in a lounge chair and savor it.

The sun, rising in the southeast, reflects off the windows of the hotel across the street, bathing my balcony in faint yellow light. Sparrows chirp at the feeder and my rabbit Pyon-kichi scratches at my foot, trying to get in a little humpy-humpy. It is, all things considered, a perfect morning.

Last night at the Mexican restaurant, after knocking back my second double margarita, I reflected upon a conversation dé Dale and I had in May.

We were at a reggae party on Noko Island, the first of a string of music events and parties held on the island and elsewhere in town during the summer. Dé Dale said he didn’t want to miss a single one of them this year.

Sitting on the beach away from the crowds, we passed a flask of Ron Zacapa Centenario back and forth.

“I’m gonna do it,” dé Dale said. “I’m gonna leave Japan.”

“When?”

“By December.”

It was something he had been ruminating over for the past year. Now, his mind was made up. There’d be no going back.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“That’s the beauty of it,” he replied, taking the flask of rum from me. “I haven’t got a clue.”

Dé Dale stood up and invited me to follow him down the beach.

“I’ve been so dumb,” he said as we made our way over some large boulders. “I should have done this yearsago rather than suffer the way I have.”

“If I stay in Japan,” he continued, “I’ll only be repeating things I’ve already done. Where’s the fun in that?”

With a mischievous smile, he added, “Rémy, you’re not to tell anyone about this. No one. Not even that stupid girlfriend of yours . . . I’m going to be bad. Very, very bad.”

Dé Dale wouldn’t go into details, saying: “The less you know, the better.”

One thing was clear, though: he was going to burn his bridges behind him as he left. And, once gone, he wouldn’t be returning. Not for several years, if ever at all.

“Mark my word,” dé Dale assured me, as he was getting out of his car. “Imaizumi is the next Daimyō.”

Everything—the coolest bars, trendiest restaurants, the most fashionable boutiques—was moving south to the neighborhood which was at the time still an unfrequented corner of the city with narrow, convoluted roads, a collection of seedy love hotels, and shabby apartment buildings.

“I watch these things very carefully,” dé Dale told me as he pressed the lock button on the car key. The Mercedes chirped.

“Tell me, how much are you paying for parking alone every month?”

“Rémy, I never ask how much something costs. I ask myself, how can I affordit.”

That witty little remark sounded awfully familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.

“So, when are you going to open up a boutique in Imaizumi, yourself?” I asked.

“I’m going one better,” he answered proudly. “I’m going to move my head office to Yakuin once I find a property I like.”

Yakuin was further south still, and one train station away from Tenjin, the commercial heart of the city.

“Why Yakuin?”

“The new subway line.”

It was under construction at the time, due to be completed in about five years’ time.

“Besides,” he said, “I’ve already got a shop in the ZEEX building over there.”

“You do?” The man amazed me. “How many places you got now?”

“Ten.”

“Ten!”

“Not bad for a Jew who started out selling trinkets from a box on the street, is it?”